


A General at Sea

by UrsulaKohl



Category: Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Age of Sail, Gen, Ghosts, Science Fantasy, Specifically dirty tricks with cutlasses, Swords, Venus - planet, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 05:10:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20420450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrsulaKohl/pseuds/UrsulaKohl
Summary: It was allegiance to the List that kept a sailor safe in the ghost straits between Earth and the oceans of Venus. The ghosts whispered or called out to sailors, in voices of the dead they'd lost, or children yet unborn. Only the bone-deep, soul-deep knowledge of where one's name was written, the direct obedience one owed to one's superiors, could keep a man from jumping overboard. Or so the story went. Bernard Rees had never encountered difficulty distinguishing the dead from the living.





	A General at Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).

The seas of Venus were gold. It was a deep, swirling, shining gold, a color that made promises, reflected and refined from the flat yellow sky. The joke was, if you were posted to Venus, the water and the brass buttons on your coat were all the gold you'd ever see. But the _Dominion_'s orders lay elsewhere. She was pausing here, by a nearly invisible gate; her path lay through another channel. Admiral Neslin would join the rest of her fleet, on the other side of the ghost straits, to patrol the northern coast of Africa. Neslin was a lean woman, her skin rough from years at sea. The hair pinned beneath her hat was streaked with white, and white scars cut across her face.

Lieutenant Bernard Rees was watching the admiral off and on, in case of a sudden order, but most of his attention was reserved for daydreaming about prize money. Rees would share one-eighth of the value of any captured ship with his fellow lieutenants, and between the corsairs and the French, the coast of Morocco was rich with prey. This was a good posting—unexpectedly good, at that. Rees wasn't sure how he had managed to end up here, as second lieutenant on a flagship. After all, he had seen pieces of the letters that his former captains wrote about him. He had a reputation for temper, for getting into unwarranted duels for unwarranted reasons. Occasionally another lieutenant suggested that Rees first joined the Royal Navy because he was following a sweetheart, and Rees was forced to show him the error of his ways, but he didn't always have even that excuse.

It helped, of course, that Rees's father had added his youngest child to the Navy List at the tender age of five, as a sort of insurance policy. The tradition was begun by Ingersoll's family, and she was now an Admiral of the White. Rees was grateful to her, for the example. When Rees went to sea in truth, at the age of fifteen, he had endured some social unpleasantness due to the inaccuracy in his listed Christian name. But he had still possessed seniority, among the midshipmen. That mattered. 

The List always mattered. It was his ranking on the List that made Rees the _Dominion_'s second lieutenant, instead of fourth or sixth. But it also protected him: it was allegiance to the List that kept a sailor safe in the ghost straits. The ghosts whispered or called out to sailors, in voices of the dead they'd lost, or children yet unborn. Only the bone-deep, soul-deep knowledge of where one's name was written, the direct obedience one owed to one's superiors, could keep a man from jumping overboard. Or so the story went. Rees had never encountered difficulty distinguishing the dead from the living, and he was damned well sure he would never have a child. 

Besides, some people did sail the ghost straits alone, with appropriate precautions: they donned the wax earstoppers of legend, or more modern plugs made from cotton wool and wax compounded. The _Dominion_, tacking back and forth in the weeks-long Venusian afternoon, was waiting for just such a person. Rees had read all the _Dominion_'s files upon her, for lack of anything better to do while sailing toward the gate. The courier, Lieutenant-Commander Grace Affay, was born in Canton to an Irish father. She displayed a distinct talent for navigation, but had no notable patron or other special qualities. There was no particular reason she should be commander of anything, rather than third or fourth lieutenant on a fourth-rate or a frigate. But perhaps that was the Board of Admiralty's intention: perhaps the Sea Lords had given her the _Ariadne_, along with whatever message she carried, because they were willing to risk losing this officer and ship in the ghost straits. In another three hours, the rendezvous would officially have failed, and the _Dominion_ could set course for Africa. Rees was looking forward to it. 

Instead, a patch of sky changed. There was an absence of shimmer. It became a flat black disk, scattered with freezing chips of stars. The disk cast a shadow on the waves, laying out a path where the false gold disappeared and the translucent depths lay empty, as clear and dark as the ghost sky. The _Ariadne_ appeared, first as a scrap of white, then resolving into a yawl, scudding ahead of the strait's winds.

"Not late after all," said Admiral Neslin. Her voice held dry amusement, though her face was stiff, the scars on her cheeks unbending. "Let us hear what the Board has to say." Captain Jenois gave the necessary commands, and the _Dominion_ hove to. In a very short time, the _Ariadne_ was beside her. Two of the _Dominion_'s sailors secured the yawl, while the courier climbed up her side on a rope ladder. 

On deck, Affay was revealed as a small woman, of a compact build. She wore her dark hair loose beneath her cocked hat. Soft curls brushed against her shoulders, and a white scarf was knotted casually about her neck. Its gentle folds showed deference neither to naval regulation nor to the strictures of fashion. Affay moved with the swagger of a duelist, the certainty that men would step out of her way. This was odd. Everything Rees had read about Affay implied that she displayed all the humility one could desire from a bottom-of-the-List lieutenant.

The greatest offense against regulations, though, was on Affay's shoulders. As she turned her head, smiling a slow smile, Rees saw that each of her epaulettes was embroidered, in raised and silver-wrapped thread, with three many-pointed stars.

"Belay the jest, woman, and give over your message," said Admiral Neslin, her tone deceptively mild.

Affay's smile broadened. It seemed meant for a wider face than the one she had. "Do not all lift your hats together!"

Rees took a half-step forward, his growing horror pulling like an Earthly tide. He knew accents; he prided himself on being able to guess where a man had grown and how long he had served, based on the shading of a vowel or the mutter of an 'r'. Affay had no Irish lilt, and of a surety her way of speaking bore no debt to Cantonese. This was the broadest Norfolk speech that Rees had ever heard.

The Royal Navy owed its existence to a Norfolk man. Or, strictly speaking, the English navy did: Jedediah Garside had been Cromwell's man. He systematized the line of battle and invented the Navy List. He took the West Indies fleet off of Arrecife. He was undefeated till he burned his own fleet to the waterline, rather than letting Tumbledown Richard give him orders. But Garside died before the second Charles was crowned. His voice would be a ghost's voice. 

Rees put his hand on his sword. He was considering drawing steel in the presence of the admiral. It was terrifying—almost as terrifying as the question of what would happen if he did not act.

"This is the sorriest excuse for a mutiny that I have ever seen," the admiral observed. "Captain Jenois, would you pass the word?"

Jenois spoke to one of the men, quietly. He would bring up the marines just as quietly. The strategy would make perfect sense, if Affay were drunk, or engaged in an elaborate joke. Rees was more and more certain she was not.

"That is seven years, Admiral Neslin, since you first reached flag rank?" Affay's slow question seemed entirely rhetorical.

Rees unsheathed his cutlass and stepped forward, balancing against the slight movement of the waves. He cut hard at Affay's face, hoping to wipe away that too-wide smile. Instead he crashed into her blade, thrown by the force of his own rush. She twisted and slammed her guard into his face. Rees blinked, trying to shove past the sudden red-orange burst in his vision—not his eye, she had not hit his eye, just crushed metal into nose and cheekbone—and felt himself dragged back by two marines.

"They said General at Sea, in my time," Garside said. He was speaking, not Affay. Rees could hear the echo of the ghost tones, now, underneath the drawn-out vowels. "We had no admirals, not red, yet white. But my name has headed the Navy List above a hundred fifty years."

"You are a damned radical cheat," Rees told the general. 

It soothed Rees a little bit, to say so. But he saw the way Neslin's face was softening. Her eyes were round; her smile was almost shy. The weight of the List and the ghost's voice were on her shoulders, and she relaxed, as if someone had draped a mantle about her shoulders. "General Garside, sir, have you orders for us?"

Rees was quite certain he would be thrown overboard. There were legends about creatures swimming in the Venusian depths. He wondered if one would have the courtesy to eat him, or if he would drown first. 

"Your lieutenant seems confused about the List," Garside mused. "Your chaplain will be trouble, too. Let us give them the _Ariadne_, and send them back again."

Rees struggled, hoping a marine would put him out of his misery. Instead, they bound his hands and bundled him onto the yawl, along with a ball of wax, a barrel of water, a round churchman murmuring psalms under his breath, a prayer-book, and a knife. Brezan wedged the knife between his knees and sawed at the rope around his wrists, cursing, as the diamond stars rose above him. He would find Garside again, exorcise him, and kill him. In some order. He would sail around two worlds, to do it.

**Author's Note:**

> My Jedediah Garside is modeled after Robert Blake, who was general at sea under Cromwell, though the details of his career are invented.
> 
> Thank you to flowersforgraves for thoughtful reading, and to petrichor-pirate for helping me figure out where to put the yawl.


End file.
